Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s the last surge of your reproductive system and hormones. Post-menopause, whenever that is for you, you are unlikely to feel this way. Lean into it, it’s natural to feel this way!

This. Enjoy/suffer it now, because when it’s over, it’s over!

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure where to post this, so apologies if this belongs in the relationships forum... I would just like to talk this out with some middle aged women.

I am female, 47, married (technically), professional, have one child who is reasonably independent (finally, thank God).....I expected to be settling into some lovely sedate middle act now that the frenetic years of child rearing and leaning in are over. Instead I find myself addicted to the most vile romance novels/series, if not straight up smut. What is this? A midlife crisis? Hormones going crazy one last time? Does this pass? When?

My objections are that it is so undignified somehow to be stuck in a teenage frame of mind at my stage in life. That it is so unproductive. I used to read real books about philosophy and art. I used to be a fuller, happier, more original person.

Commiseration, advice from other women who have been through this would be most welcome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m ^^ and why would you be embarrassed? We have bodies and desires. I also read both 2023 Pulitzer Prize winners. We can be multifaceted.

I've been thinking about your question. Embarrassment is maybe not the right word. dislike? discomfort? disdain?

i think it is a combination of:
1-book snobbery. this has been the main identity that has stayed constant for me all my life. my closest friends, spouse, child name etc all came to me via my love of books. beside my bed, i have two piles of books. the books i want to read and the ones i actually am reading. suddenly, i feel like the coffee gourmand who is hooked on instant. If, like you, i was reading both types of books, I would just accept this as one of my tastes. But it is the only taste I have these days. Bleh.
2-my other great love is for self-pity. i feel like i am obsessing over the one thing I don't have. i've been so fortunate in so many areas of my life, fixating on this aspect of life feels like a determination to be unhappy. It's a little horrifying to me, to imagine this as anything but a temporary hormonal phase i am going through. Because i will never stop picking at that hurt.
3-like any other 40 something mom, i am crucified by work/child raising/domestic drudgery. spending the little bit of disposable time and attention that i do have, on emotional junk food (for me, anyway) results in me spending the rest of my day brooding on rubbish instead of say, poetry.

Am not judging anyone else. Obviously.

Thanks for responding everyone! And please keep the recommendations coming.

I'm pp and you're being really hard on yourself. I get it because I judge myself too harshly too, but I'm getting to the point where I'm finally trying to be me. I've always been a romantic at heart, and it sounds like you, I've always lived in my head. I, too, thought literary fiction was the only way. But, then I admitted to myself I didn't get much joy from it. I like more plot driven books, and that's what I want to read. I like to think there are seasons in my life, and that's okay. I can change my mind at any point. It helps for me to tell myself the truth: honestly I probably am never going to really like or read poetry. But, that doesn't mean anything about me except that I don't like that genre.

Midlife is very hard and that emotional junk food, i.e. self care is the path forward. Perimenopause, work, the sandwich generation takes it's toll. I've been so irritable for six months that I've hunkered down and just read and watched junk TV. Let's not forget the state of the world too. We just agreed in our book group (where I read one of the Pulitizers) that we will only read easy peasy, nothing too emotional or hard this fall because nobody can handle it rn.

So, give yourself a break and let's just focus on which smutty books we love most!

50 and I feel like I am going to jump out of my skin with anxiety over the state of the world. I wake up at 4am and put on NPR and my gd, it's just one horrible thing after another. Waiting for November - and fearing what might happen - has me in a permanent state of brain fuzz.

I can't imagine I am alone in this. (Though wouldn't that be great if no one else were feeling this way.) If sh**ty tv and terrible books help us get through the day, there's worse ways to cope.

My mom had a stress heart attack from watching the news all the time. I'm not saying check out and be uninformed, but you don't have to wake up and put on NPR (or any news) and in fact I think you shouldn't. Listen to something fun or relaxing.

Anonymous wrote:I’ll do you one better OP. I’m 50, same concerns, but found the drivel I was reading to be so bad that I tried fanfiction. It’s free smut. Turns out some of it is smut written very well. Aspiring authors. Many grad students who write for fun.

So now instead of reading crap smut off Amazon Unlimited I’m reading “dramione” (Draco/Hermione) or “reylo”
(Star Wars) or whatever fan fiction. I use Archive of Our Own, a free site people upload on.

My dirty secret. Hard to respect myself but it’s light & delicious.

My recs:

Draco Malloy and the mortifying ordeal of falling in love
https://archiveofourown.org/works/34500952/chapters/85870804

Love and other historical accidents
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21496525/chapters/51233119

Turn
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13184640/chapters/30157698

Anonymous wrote:I’ll do you one better OP. I’m 50, same concerns, but found the drivel I was reading to be so bad that I tried fanfiction. It’s free smut. Turns out some of it is smut written very well. Aspiring authors. Many grad students who write for fun.

So now instead of reading crap smut off Amazon Unlimited I’m reading “dramione” (Draco/Hermione) or “reylo”
(Star Wars) or whatever fan fiction. I use Archive of Our Own, a free site people upload on.

My dirty secret. Hard to respect myself but it’s light & delicious.

My recs:

Draco Malloy and the mortifying ordeal of falling in love
https://archiveofourown.org/works/34500952/chapters/85870804

Love and other historical accidents
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21496525/chapters/51233119

Turn
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13184640/chapters/30157698

Anonymous wrote:But why are there no book recommendations? I've done 50 Shades of Gray. What's next?

Anonymous wrote:But why are there no book recommendations? I've done 50 Shades of Gray. What's next?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m ^^ and why would you be embarrassed? We have bodies and desires. I also read both 2023 Pulitzer Prize winners. We can be multifaceted.

I've been thinking about your question. Embarrassment is maybe not the right word. dislike? discomfort? disdain?

i think it is a combination of:
1-book snobbery. this has been the main identity that has stayed constant for me all my life. my closest friends, spouse, child name etc all came to me via my love of books. beside my bed, i have two piles of books. the books i want to read and the ones i actually am reading. suddenly, i feel like the coffee gourmand who is hooked on instant. If, like you, i was reading both types of books, I would just accept this as one of my tastes. But it is the only taste I have these days. Bleh.
2-my other great love is for self-pity. i feel like i am obsessing over the one thing I don't have. i've been so fortunate in so many areas of my life, fixating on this aspect of life feels like a determination to be unhappy. It's a little horrifying to me, to imagine this as anything but a temporary hormonal phase i am going through. Because i will never stop picking at that hurt.
3-like any other 40 something mom, i am crucified by work/child raising/domestic drudgery. spending the little bit of disposable time and attention that i do have, on emotional junk food (for me, anyway) results in me spending the rest of my day brooding on rubbish instead of say, poetry.

Am not judging anyone else. Obviously.

Thanks for responding everyone! And please keep the recommendations coming.

I'm pp and you're being really hard on yourself. I get it because I judge myself too harshly too, but I'm getting to the point where I'm finally trying to be me. I've always been a romantic at heart, and it sounds like you, I've always lived in my head. I, too, thought literary fiction was the only way. But, then I admitted to myself I didn't get much joy from it. I like more plot driven books, and that's what I want to read. I like to think there are seasons in my life, and that's okay. I can change my mind at any point. It helps for me to tell myself the truth: honestly I probably am never going to really like or read poetry. But, that doesn't mean anything about me except that I don't like that genre.

Midlife is very hard and that emotional junk food, i.e. self care is the path forward. Perimenopause, work, the sandwich generation takes it's toll. I've been so irritable for six months that I've hunkered down and just read and watched junk TV. Let's not forget the state of the world too. We just agreed in our book group (where I read one of the Pulitizers) that we will only read easy peasy, nothing too emotional or hard this fall because nobody can handle it rn.

So, give yourself a break and let's just focus on which smutty books we love most!

50 and I feel like I am going to jump out of my skin with anxiety over the state of the world. I wake up at 4am and put on NPR and my gd, it's just one horrible thing after another. Waiting for November - and fearing what might happen - has me in a permanent state of brain fuzz.

I can't imagine I am alone in this. (Though wouldn't that be great if no one else were feeling this way.) If sh**ty tv and terrible books help us get through the day, there's worse ways to cope.

Anonymous wrote:Whatever you do, don’t read the idea of you – the one that was just turned into a movie with Anne Hathaway. Someone on another thread said it was steamy, but I thought they did a terrible job of the lead up (that makes a good smutty scene) and just went for the actuals. Plus lots of scenes that involved licking/smelling his fingers.

Anonymous wrote:Whatever you do, don’t read the idea of you – the one that was just turned into a movie with Anne Hathaway. Someone on another thread said it was steamy, but I thought they did a terrible job of the lead up (that makes a good smutty scene) and just went for the actuals. Plus lots of scenes that involved licking/smelling his fingers.